In last century the USA and a century before that the United Kingdom bestrode the world like a behemoth, the small group of nations around the Northern Atlantic, 'The West' literally ruled the world. For two centuries The Westerners have invaded the East (Africa and Asia) but Africans or Asians have not sent armies to invade Europe. We communicate in their language, we wear their cloths, we study their culture and we believe today is whatever date it is because they said so.

In 17th century many Westerners visited India and China and they were overawed by the wealth and sophistication of societies in Asia. But in 18th century many Europeans started to believe the Westerners were simply superior to rest of the world. According to French social commentator Baron de Montesquieu Europeans had "- a certain vigor of Body and Mind which renders them patient and intrepid and qualifies them for arduous exercises.".

When asked why Europeans are superior to everyone else they often concluded that it was their 'CULTURE'. Just look, they argued, at the doctrines of Socrates, the wisdom of the bible, or the works of Leonardo da Vinci.

In my opinion they couldn't be more wrong. For example Socrates wasn't the only philosopher in 5th Century BC. The years when he was active were also the age of Buddha and early Jainism in India and Confucius and first Daoists in China. They answered the same questions Socrates dealt with - The Meaning of reality, the way of good life and creation of perfect society. Socrates was just the local version of a broader trend.

Christianity was also a local version of a broader trend than something that set the West apart from the rest. As the roman empire fell in mid-first millennium, new questions arose - " Is there anything beyond life? Can I be saved from the aftermath?"The Christianity provided the answers (let's not get into the validity of those answers) and gained over 40 million followers. But in the same years in the wake of Han Dynasty's fall in China, Mahayana and Buddhism were offering their own answers to same questions. Soon enough Islam reached to Africa, the middle east and southern Asia. Leonardo da Vinci refined wisdom of ancient west to revolutionize everything from aeronautics to arts but 400 years before Vinci China has produced it's own Renaissance men who refined ancient wisdom to revolutionize everything. Shen Kua (1031-1095) published groundbreaking work in field of agriculture science, archeology and geology etc. Da Vinci would no doubt have been impressed. The triumphs of western culture were impressive but they were just local version of a broader trend and not lonely beacons in general darkness.

So if culture wasn't the factor than what made Europeans superior? Answer is simple : 'GEOGRAPHY'.Geography is unfair - societies evolve with the same sequence of cultural development. Geography dictates the speed at which different parts of World develop but the development can redefine geography too. 5000 years ago Europe was at a disadvantage geographically. It was far from centers of action Mesopotamia and Egypt so at the very beginning of recorded history geography made western Europe backward. Fast-forward to 500 years ago same geography gave western Europe wealth and power. Geography was the reason that it was Europeans and not Indians or Chinese who first discovered, colonized and plundered the Americas. India and China were as developed as Europe but geography placed them twice as far from American Continent as Europe, so Europeans got there first. But the western dominance will not last forever. History teaches that. The back-and-forth between Geography and Social development keeps on working. By 1900, the vast resources of USA made it the 'top nation'. In late 20th century the human resources of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and eventually China and India made them newer global cores. If the process of change continues with the same pace in 21st century we can expect the East to overtake West by 2050.

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About Me

Quiz_Master (Ashwin Saxena) is a MCA 5th sem student who loves technology and computers. His ultimate goal is to learn as much about computers as he can. He uses Ubuntu 10.04 as his primary OS and WinXP Pro as 2ndry OS. He is interested in software testing and is expert in Photoshop,Windows OS, Corel Draw, C/C++ language,MySQL, DreamWeaver and Computer Networking. He can also dance and loves writing.